Daughter of Above and Below
by longliv98
Summary: Isla has always been aware of her power-things catch on fire when she's angry, trees fall down when she's scared. She's also always been aware of someone watching her, waiting. After getting kidnapped, she's rescued by Rion, the adoptive son of a warlock and a shadowhunter. She gets thrown in to their world and, as a new evil rises, she realizes she might be in the middle of it.
1. Chapter 1

Somewhere in the distance, a butterfly was fluttering from flower to flower, sipping nectar and rubbing its legs together. Its wings were a deep shade of emerald, its beady eyes glimmering like freshly extinguished coal.

Isla had no proof that this butterfly was real, of course. However in her mind it was, and its beauty shown even from miles away. It was so wondrous it could be admired by even her most dimwitted classmates.

 _Well,_ thought Isla, _this may not be the most entertaining thought I've ever had. But at least it's better than Calculus._

At the front of the class, her teacher Ms. Bree droned on in her terribly monotonous voice, and Isla looked out her window at the stretched out, polluted city below her, and thought of the butterfly.

Two hours later, Isla stumbled out of her Advanced Piano class, fingers aching. She flexed them, swinging her arms through the handles on her bag and heading toward the stairs.

The Academy for the Musically Gifted is twelve stories (the bottom three are _never_ in use), and most people take the elevator. Isla takes the stairs for exactly that reason. Also, she rarely gets winded, so the many steps don't bother her too much.

She twists her chestnut-brown hair into a quick bun, and tromps down the stairs. Apart from a stoner who whistled and asked if she wanted a hit, no one bothered her.

Just as she reached the staircase approaching the first floor, a sound reminiscent of screeching metal sliced through the air. Isla's vision went blurry and her foot slipped on one of the steps. She fell, face first, onto the tiled floor, with only just enough time and common sense to throw her hands in front of her.

Hot pain shot up her arm, but the noise was still persistent so she stayed down, clutching her ears.

It didn't fade, or flash, or pop or fizzle. It just . . . stopped. One second: screeching. Next second: silence.

She gently removed her hands from her ears, and only hesitated a few seconds before bolting down the rest of the stairs, shoving people aside and bursting through the doors to the world outside.

The city was abuzz. It was about six (Isla had to stay later to work on a piece with her piano teacher), and already people were off work. They swarmed like ants, so many that their faces blurred and, to Isla, became a giant, pulsing amorphous blob, a singular entity.

Isla _hated_ crowds.

She clings to her school building wall as she walks, until reaching the alley she knew to cut through to get home. She'd only ever seen one other person use it, and this time was no different: the alley was completely empty.

There were three dumpsters and, at the very end, a flickering light. Isla supposed that most people would find this creepy, and be afraid to enter. Maybe that's why it was always vacant. Anyway, she, herself, felt no fear.

She knew enough to say that any thug who tried to do anything to her would regret it.

She slipped her AutoPlayer from her pocket, flicking the top up and pressing the _"play"_ button underneath. Clare de Lune trickled into her head, forcing a smile onto her face. She shoved the aPlayer into the pocket of her jeans, turning up the volume a little.

Halfway through the alley, she heard a rustle from some of the garbage cans, even over the piano. She jerked one headphone out and snapped her head to the side. When she saw nothing, she breathed out shakily and said, "Rats."

She slipped the earphone back in and continued walking.

A shadow past through her line of vision suddenly, and she dug her heels in the ground, stopping and putting her aPlayer away for good.

Whispers. Definitely _human_ whispers. Isla tried to convince herself that it was just rats again but—rats _don't whisper._

She tried to decipher what the voice was saying—or even if it was male of female, if the person had an accent. But there was _nothing._ It was almost as if they were speaking in another language, but, if they were, it was definitely no language Isla (who's fluent in five of them) had ever heard.

"Hello?" she called out, and immediately winced. That's what all the characters say in the old horror movies, right before they're brutally murdered.

Isla inched a little closer to shadows and kept walking.

The whispers surged up.

Isla swallowed the irrational fear bubbling up in her chest, set back her shoulders and said, "Show yourself." And then, mostly just to sound intimidating, "You don't want to mess with me. Take my word on that."

No response, save the complete eradication of the whispering. Isla smiled: maybe she had scared whoever it was off with her astounding badass-ness.

She strolled on for a few yards, putting her earphones back on and turning up the music.

She only got a few strides before something seemed to sweep down from the sky, tangling itself with her, muffling her screams, and forcing her into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

This wasn't the first time Isla had been attacked.

The day after her seventh birthday, she was out behind their apartment building, climbing the only tree anywhere near their vicinity. It wasn't a big one. It had yellow twisting around the trunk, mushrooms blooming where leaves should be. Still, she climbed it, reaching higher and higher every day.

The day she finally reached the top, someone was waiting for her.

At first, it looked like a shadow. The figure was billowy and charcoal-black, as if the person was wearing a cape of smoke. When she climbed a little higher, she saw the rest and nearly fell out of the tree.

The face had been scarred and twisted, so the bottom lip was nearly swallowing the top and the nose drooped, cracked and bent, toward the chin. The creature was completely bald and its eyes were just empty sockets, stretching forever backward into darkness.

As it moved toward her, still burning embers flaked from its arms. Isla found she couldn't move, like her legs had been stuck together with the hot glue she wasn't allowed to use, and her mouth was all sawdust. The creature brought one finger down on Isla's shoulders. Immediately, pain sparked within her.

It was burning, the skin sizzling. Isla didn't know how burning felt until that point; once, when she was a toddler, her father had left macaroni boiling on the stove and left for the bathroom. She'd wandered over and accidentally pulled the pot down—on top of her head. Her father had run out of the bathroom and, upon seeing her, screamed and cradled her and showered her in ice and cold water and kisses. He even called an ambulance. But it didn't hurt her, not at all.

A few weeks after that, when her daycare had taken her class on a camping trip, she dropped her marshmallow into the fire and reached in to retrieve it.

Finally, she was feeling the pain of a burn, at the hands of this creature.

Her fear began to crack as the pain became unbearable. She was scared, but she also had an overwhelming urge to _survive._

A loud _clap_ reverberated through the air as the tree severed from its roots. The creature let go of Isla and for a second there was nothing; then, like a flash of lightning, she was on the ground, the tree a second or two behind.

She was going to be crushed under its weight, scratched and wounded by its branches. She threw her dimpled hands in front of her face, squeezing her eyes shut and waiting for the pain. She breathed deeply and covered her ears to the cracking and thudding.

She held back a sob, so afraid of what would happen next as her eyes peeled open. She wondered if maybe the tree had missed her somehow—but no, that couldn't be right. She should've been pinned underneath the trunk.

She sat up, shaking woodchips from her hair—and saw they were _everywhere._

There was no large tree trunk in sight. It was in fragmented pieces, surrounding the circle where Isla had just been sitting. The tree not looked like sand, the branches ground into dust—their white flakes floated down like snow.

A sharp yelping split through the air, and Isla jerked around to see the creature pinned underneath some twigs, caught in thorn bushes, a branch through its chest. It whimpered and screamed in pain, and the sound was so terrifying it made Isla shiver into her teeth.

She didn't know what to do; should she tell someone, get help? Should she scream? Cry? Wait for someone to show up?

In the end, she ran home. A few days later, when her dad would ask if she knew what happened to the tree, she'd tell him she had no clue.

She never showed anyone that finger-shaped scar on her shoulder.

Once more, when she was twelve. She'd just been asked to go on a "proper date" with a boy at her school. Of course, Isla wasn't a social type, and she _especially_ wasn't a dating type—well, for starters, she was twelve.

The "hot date" was at a place called Muckee's Pancake Warehouse, and pretty much consisted of getting a ride from his mother and then spending thirty minutes in awkward silence.

Needless to say, they never went on a second date.

Anyway, afterward, his mom offered her a ride home and she, not wanting to spend even more time in uncomfortable silence, refused. It was just a quick subway ride home.

On her way there, the sun had just begun to dip into the horizon. The twilight air was crisp so she wrapped her jacket firmly around herself and half-jogged to the subway station.

She didn't make it.

"What's a young girl doing out on her own so late?"

The voice was like nothing she'd heard before; Isla was already going to a school for the musically gifted for her singing voice, and she could immediately sense that this man shared the same talent.

That did _not_ make her feel safe around him, however.

"Just going home," she replied smoothly. "I live really close."

He stepped out of the shadows and she saw his face—her breath caught.

Part of going to a school of art means you have to admire all different kinds—she had a class just on the admiration of different paintings and sculptured throughout history. Now, looking at this boy, she got the same feeling she did when she saw a particularly beautiful painting: like breath hitching, like worlds spinning and freezing and melting away until you find yourself getting lost in the beauty of it all.

He looked about eighteen, with salt-and-pepper streaked hair hanging in his shining blue eyes. His lips were set in a pout, his cheek bones high and prominent. His skin was tan and healthy looking it seemed to practically _glow,_ even in the poor lighting of flickering streetlamps.

"Really?" he asked, voice like honey. "Maybe I should walk you there, to make sure you're safe."

She found herself nodding, wanting to agree with whatever he said, wanting to _please_ him.

He walked toward her and stood by her side, and for a few yards they really did just walk. When he cocked his head to side, toward the moon, for just a _second,_ Isla could swear his ears were curved up at the ends.

Isla didn't say anything, mostly because she was afraid to say something stupid and childish. The boy didn't break the silence, either.

She was enchanted by him. He stepped the wrong way and she followed. He coughed and she covered her mouth.

He reached over and put his hand on her shoulder, right where her burn-scar was. A switch flipped in her mind, and an alarm buzzed in her ears.

She leapt away from him, every cell in her body screaming _danger, danger._ He followed her easily, in one liquid motion grabbing her arms and pinning them behind her back.

"There's no use trying to escape," he sneered into her ear, twisting her hand painfully, forcing a whimper of pain from her throat. "I'll find you. You belong to _me_ now."

She still kicked and scratched and bit but he always moved out of the way. He wrapped his arms around her like a vice, squeezing out the air and forcing her to be still.

Frustrated tears welled in her eyes and closed them. Anger and fear coursed through her veins, adrenaline following right behind. In one last blast of rage she kicked out—and this time, something happened.

A blinding light filled her whole line of vision. She was knocked back into the street. She heard a _snap_ from her ankle, and her eyes blurred with the pain as her body threatened to give out, to let her fall unconscious. She fought to stay awake, knowing this was her only chance of escape, and climbed to her feet.

As soon as she was up, she saw the man who'd just been about to kidnap her (or worse), and froze.

The boy had been thrown back into a nearby building. His head hung, seemingly too heavy for his neck. It took Isla a moment to even register that it was him, because something was terribly _wrong._

His smooth, tan skin was charred and peeling. It was missing from about half of his face, and through the side of his cheek she could see his tongue flickering through his teeth. His salt-and-pepper hair was singed and missing. He was bleeding so profusely there was a puddle or blood underneath him.

Her eyes filled and the only thing she could think was _"Did I do that? Am_ I _the monster?"_

She limped toward him, searching for any sign he was still alive.

At first when she saw his chest move, she was relieved. That only lasted a second because, in the blink of an eye, his skin began to reform.

It seemed to be stretching and multiplying, crawling across the burnt and injured areas like insects. She could no longer see bone or sinew. The blood had stopped flowing. The glow began to return, and his finger twitched.

She limped away as fast as she could, still nursing her injured ankle. Even when she was back in the more populated areas of New York, even when the lights shown blindingly and people pushed and shoved past, she ran. She felt his eyes on her even when it was impossible for them to be.

By the time she got home, her ankle and the few cuts on her face had completely healed. Her father asked why her dress was ripped and she said she'd dropped a glass on herself and the glass had cut it up, but she was okay.

From that moment on, she knew with terrifying certainty: she wasn't normal. She wasn't _human._ She was something else, something worse.

When Isla resurfaces to consciousness, she finds she's no longer in the alley behind the school.

At first, she doesn't remember. For a minute, when her eyes open and the light makes them water and the world is still a fuzzy mix of reality and dreams, she thinks she's home. She expects to climb wearily from under the comfort of her blankets and walk out to the living room, greeted by the smell of Saturday Bacon (a tradition).

The memory of the attack is like a hurricane over her head. Its weight is crushing and overwhelming. She fumbles for something, anything, to hang on to—she ends up with fistfuls of hay.

She jerks up into sitting position, her head spinning from the sudden blood rush. Spots shoot across her vision, but after a few seconds of blinking they disappear.

The floor is covered in yellow straw, save a navy bucket in the far corner. The walls are brick and completely white, surrounding me on all sides. At the very top of the far left wall, there's a window. It provides the only light in this dank cell.

There _is_ a door, however, in the front wall. A silver slot is in it, which I can only assume is for meals. It's surrounded by something bigger that Isla, at first, recognizes as a dog-door. Upon second consideration, she looks at the bucket and realizes what it must be for.

She crawls towards the door, adrenaline spiking, and reaches up to find a seam or knob or _something_ she can use.

As soon as her fingers make contact, a wave of electricity shoots from her fingertips to her toes and rattles her teeth. She jerks her hand back but the pain doesn't cease for another minute. She flops onto the straw-covered ground, ceasing and trying to remember not to bite her tongue.

Eventually, the pain fades, but she still doesn't move. She lies there, trying to think of a way to escape. The window's too high up her to reach, and even if she did there was no guarantee she'd be able to open it. Maybe she could try climbing the bricks? What if that wall shocked her, too?

"Ah, Isla," a voice crackles over what Isla can assume is a loud-speaker.

She sits up, searching the room for the source of the noise. It's small, but it's a connection to someone. Maybe it's a way out.

She finds nothing.

"You're awake."

The voice is like ice-spikes down her back.

"I'm sorry about the shock," the voice says. Isla's able to discern that it's most likely a man, and from the stretch and lack of movement in his words, he's probably smiling. Other than that: she knew nothing. "We couldn't risk you escaping, you see? That would've been _most_ unpleasant.

"I know you must be scared, I'm sorry about that. Please understand that we are _not_ here to hurt you. As long as you cooperate with us, we won't kill you. It's very simple." The man pauses to clear his throat, and Isla wishes she could scratch his voice from her ears. "Will you cooperate with us, Isla? Will you?"

She says nothing, just lays there until eventually he says, "I see," and the loud speaker clicks off.

Once night falls, the cell is plunged into pitch-darkness. She closes her eyes and pictures her father, frantically searching for his missing daughter, sobbing when her body's found. It makes Isla's chest ache.

She wonders semidetached if it will hurt, dying. Will they make it quick and painless? Somehow, that really doesn't seem likely.

In that moment, she made a promise to herself: she would fight. She would give them everything she had to make sure she returned home safely, to make it home for Ravioli Tuesday. Even if she didn't, even if she died: she would go down fighting.

Right after that silent vow of toughness and bravery, she bowed her head, took a deep breath, and cried herself to sleep.


End file.
